


Home For the Holidays

by NorthwesternInsanity



Category: Def Leppard, Music RPF
Genre: Bandmate brothers, Challenged Parental Relationship, Christmas Eve, Gen, Loneliness, Lucid Dreaming, Rescue, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-14 23:38:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13018632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorthwesternInsanity/pseuds/NorthwesternInsanity
Summary: When Steve returns home for the holidays, he is subjected to his father's scorn rather than love, leading him to retreat to lonely nights in the basement beneath his home. He desperately wishes to be with his real family on Christmas Eve.  Little does he know it might come true just in time.





	Home For the Holidays

The room was cold, dark, and dreary. Cold, biting winter wind blew through the drafty walls and the window which had been smashed out.

Steve Clark shivered, pulling the thin blanket over himself and curling up tighter on the air mattress he lay on, exhaling on his hands before tucking them inside his armpits as he lay back down on the pillow

He'd had to go home to his family for Christmas. Not all rock stars got to go home for the major holiday, and it seemed like something that he should have been happy for.

But he wasn't. He was miserable. 

From the moment he'd gotten home, Steve had been railed on non-stop from his father, asking him when he'd finally grow up, quit fooling around with this music industry that would leave him hungry and cold as soon as his luck ran out, and get a real job. Saying that he wasn't trying hard enough.

It was the kind of stuff that made his heart pound and his stomach twist. After two days of it, Steve had packed up his stuff last night -his awards from the recent tour, his guitar he'd brought home and it's stand, his duffle bag full of clothes, and put it all in the basement of the building which they lived in. 

It was hard to get to from inside, but from the alleyway, there was a smashed out window which Steve found he could climb through undetected. The stairs were right by the window, so it wasn't a full drop down. It was a terrible, cold and damp lonely place, but he was free of the ridicule that had driven him here.

He'd taken the pillow and blanket from the guest room, and a trip to a store not far away had given him the inflatable ready-mattress. A few unused shelves on the wall became the temporary home of his awards. 

Steve laughed bitterly, catching it in his throat and feeling his eyes burn. He'd brought those awards home to show his old man. He'd thought they'd be enough to say something. Apparently not. Nothing he did was good enough. He was home with his family, but it wasn't his real family, and it didn't feel like home.

Beside the awards on the wall, he'd taped up a picture he kept in his guitar case. One of Ross' pictures of him with Phil, Sav, Joe, and Rick. His real family. The one whom he was always home with -regardless if they were on a plane, bus, in the studio, or onstage.

They weren't to go back to the studio until the day after New Years'. 

Steve gulped back a sob and and burrowed into his pillow, his heart aching. He missed them so much already -it was going to be a painful week waiting for them. It was Christmas Eve, and it didn't feel like it in the slightest. He was lonely, cold, and there was nothing festive around him. No love toward him.

Sleep overtook him as he watched flurries land in the iciness of the walk outside the window, the wind howling as it blew through.

Hours later, he snapped out of sleep, hearing a set of soft footsteps. Black boots in front of him, leading up to a fuzzy red suit. His vision was hazy, and he wasn't quite aware of his contact with the ground.

_I must be dreaming_ , Steve groaned to himself. _Santa Claus doesn't exist...except in the dream world where anything can._

There was a soft noise, and Steve looked up again with concern, and then his face fell with shock.

Santa on his knees, tears rolling down his big red cheeks and into his snowy beard. Steve looked around frantically, trying to figure out what was the matter, and then seeing the state of himself, realized it.

The reason he was down here was because he didn't have a life with his family. His life was music -writing, playing guitar, being onstage, and performing for the fans who gave him the love he could never get here, just as his mates he played with gave him that love.

But this was heartbreaking.

It felt weird, but Steve reached out, noticing he could somewhat see through his hand. He was definitely dreaming lucidly.

"Santa... Please. Don't cry. This is my life -I chose it this way. My guitar, my music, my band -they're what matter, because they don't let me down. Please don't worry about me. I'll be okay."

Shakily, Steve trailed off, lying back down as tears began to well up in his own eyes. What a screw-up, being able to reduce somebody as jolly as Old Saint Nick to heartbroken weeping.

" _I just want to be home. Truly home. I want my family. Phil, Sav, Joe, and Rick,"_ Steve murmured in his sleep, shivering softly as the wind kicked up, blowing snowflakes through the window. He could hear a metallic clang as it knocked over trash cans in the alley. 

Then, silence as the wind settled. Very soft, gentle silence, yet eerie and cold.

Steve shuddered as a chill went up his spine at the quiet around him. Tears rolled back from his eyes across his temples and into his hair as ever so softly, he sang under his breath:

"Silent night... Holy night... All is-"

A door creaked from the staircase. Steve flinched, stopping short.

The silhouette looked familiar.

"Steve?" came a confused voice with a London style accent.

Steve sat up.

The person ran over, dropping to his knees right next to him, sporting a bittersweet grin -happy to see him, but shocked at the state.

Steve climbed forward without hesitation and threw himself into an embrace around Phil, who locked his arms around him too.

"Oh, Steve, you shoulda' called us, mate," murmured Phil.

Steve just nodded, resting his chin on Phil's shoulder, desperate to feel the touch of somebody who loved him. He saw three other pairs of legs walking toward him, and looked up.

Joe, Sav, and Rick.

"Now, Steve... Mate, why on earth would we want you alone, on Christmas Eve of all nights?" scolded Joe playfully. "Come in, pack your stuff up. We're gonna take you back to my place in Sheffield. You'd best get going though, it's very late."

"What?" 

Steve's cheeks ached from the smile that crawled across his face as it dawned on him. He was getting out of here. Going home. To his real home, with his real family.

He stood up, Rick having already picked up his duffle bag and slung it over his shoulder. Steve got his guitar from its stand, having no intention of leaving it there, but only after tightly hugging Sav and Joe.

"Thank you... thanks for coming for me-"

"You can be with us, mate. There's no reason for you to be in this dreadful place," assured Sav.

Moments later, piled into Joe's car, the heat on and the wind blocked out, Steve was not only glowing warm on the outside, but his heart was with love in the inside.

The radio came to life as they came within a signal area, and Rick playfully began to sing along with the voice of Perry Como.

"Oh there's no place like home, for the holidays..."

"Cause no matter how far away you roam," Sav joined in.

"When you pine for the sunshine of a friendly gaze," Joe added in, looking up in the rear view mirror with a smile back at Steve, just as Phil turned to also beam at Steve.

Steve grinned, shyness out the window of the car as all five broke out into full song along the back road to Sheffield.

_"For the holidays you can't beat home, sweet, home!"_

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this to Rockfic last year, and I'm sharing it here to back it up this year. A little early, but it's close enough (in the twelve day countdown range now...)
> 
> There may be more to come of this that won't come until closer to Christmas. This was written after I wrote a parody of a poem that's often read over Mannheim Steamroller's Stille Nacht on the radio called "A Soldier's Silent Night" -because I could see Steve being depressed at home with his troubled relationship, even if not to the level of sadness in the original poem (which makes me weep whenever it comes on). I was told that poem format wasn't acceptable on Rockfic, so it never went up there, but I'll debate putting the poem up here.


End file.
